On October 7, 1941, in the Kremlin, Stalin waited anxiously for the war report from the front. News of the loss of defensive positions came in waves. Hitler's steel chariots were rushing towards Moscow at lightning speed.
A general who had just flown back from the Leningrad front told him: "Don't panic, even if we don't know where the enemy is attacking and how many troops are in the army, we will still have the last laugh." ”
Stalin handed over the fortunes of the country and the people to this man, and Zhukov, the future Marshal of the Soviet Union, would shoulder the burden of the Great Patriotic War with his military talents against the sky.
Zhukov's ancestral home is the village of Trekovka, Kaluga Oblast, Moscow. He was born into a destitute family of shoemakers. Unlike Stalin, Zhukov's family conditions can be described in two words: the family is surrounded by four walls.
At that time, Tsarist Russia was full of illiteracy, and the primary school was a three-year system. After the death of his parents, Zhukov came to his grandfather's knees and completed his primary school studies with high quality. He was 11 years old when he graduated.
After becoming a high-ranking intellectual, Zhukov went to Moscow to join his uncle, where he became an apprentice in a rough workshop. My uncle was not a qualified relative, but a qualified capitalist. Under the mixed double of his uncle and aunt, Zhukov struggled to get by.
But even so, he insisted on self-study, which was his only hobby. With the help of his cousin, his uncle agreed, and Zhukov was allowed to attend a four-year evening school. So, in the days when Zhukov was doing his homework while doing cattle and horses, he quietly waited for the opportunity that belonged to him.
In 1912, at the age of 17, Zhukov was finally promoted from a primary school apprentice to a regular master, with a monthly salary of ten rubles. With money in hand, he decisively moved out to rent a house. The widow's landlady had a slim daughter named Mary.
fell in love with Zhukov without saying a word. In this way, the little love is talking, the small life is living, and the palace of marriage is walking step by step. In 1914, World War I broke out.
The cousin dragged him to join the army: "Put on the military uniform and be a generalissimo!" Zhukov refused: "Give fate a head, I won't go." ”
My cousin swore that he went, and it wasn't long before he scribbled home on a stretcher. A year later, fate once again extended a huge hand to Zhukov. The tsar forced conscription, and Zhukov had no choice but to say goodbye to Maria, enlist in the army, enter the cavalry unit, go to the front, and fight with the Germans.
During his nearly two-year military career, Zhukov was awarded a Georgi Cross. In the end, he, like his cousin, was wounded by artillery fire and was carried to the hospital on a stretcher. During the period of recuperation, two revolutions broke out in Saudi Arabia, the tsarist rule was overthrown, and the Red and White Civil War broke out in Soviet Russia.
Zhukov joined the Red Army, served in the 4th Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division, fought under the command of Frunze. Zhukov had a good combat performance throughout the Red and White Civil War, and fought against Denikin and Kolchak, the top masters of the White Army at that time. After the end of the Civil War, Zhukov rose to the rank of commander and political commissar of the 39th Cavalry Regiment, which gave him the opportunity to study at the Leningrad Higher Cavalry School and the Frunze Military Academy.
Here he got acquainted with Konstantin Rokossovsky, Ivan Bagramyan, and others. In the face of these bigwigs, I feel that I am not bad at all, but I am just missing an opportunity.
In 1936, when the Spanish Civil War broke out, Zhukov went to Spain to serve as a military adviser ......He had read de Gaulle's views on tanks and believed that tank units would play a decisive role in the next world war if they could solve the problem of coordination with the infantry.
So, Zhukov conducted experiments in tank-based combat in Spain, but the results were not ideal. Disillusioned, Stalin disbanded a large number of tank units. At this time, the Soviet Union, like France, did not pay much attention to the role of tank brigades, believing that cavalry and defense in depth were the best configuration.
In February 1937, Zhukov was already a military commander. You know, this is a military commander who survived Stalin's purge, and it is full of gold. In July, the devils in the east launched a full-scale war of aggression against China.
As everyone knows, the devil is ambitious, and the Soviet Union has to guard against it. So, Zhukov came to China as a military adviser, supporting China while learning from devils. Not long after, he was transferred back to the USSR and served as deputy commander of the Belarusian Special Military District.
Originally, he wanted him to defend Germany in the west, but not long after he went back, the devils in the east made the first move. At the end of May 1939, the Japanese army planned to use the Kalaha River on the Soviet-Mongolian border as a springboard to invade the Soviet Union. The Japanese army provoked war by claiming that soldiers were missing from the Mongols. This is the Battle of Nomenkan, which Zhukov was remembered for the first time in later generations.
The first batch of 1,200 troops, after fighting with the Mongolian army, the Soviet Union sent a tank brigade to the front line to support, and asked Zhukov to go to the front line to inspect the battle situation. After receiving the news that 1,200 people were missing on the Soviet-Mongolian border, the Japanese army immediately sent 25,000 people from the Kwantung Army to search and rescue them.
Large-scale fighting broke out between the two sides at Nomenkan, and the two sides first fought in the air.
The Japanese fighters were completely crushed by the Soviet Air Force, and chose to avoid their edge and attack the Soviet airfield. The Soviet fighter group was heavily damaged, and Zhukov was also on top, decisively raiding the fuel base of the Japanese army. The Japanese army was short of planes and tanks, and wanted to fight quickly.
At that time, the Japanese tank design had strong national characteristics, small and short, and the skin was still thin, and the Soviet tank was stiff and rigid, belonging to the egg hitting the stone. After the Japanese mechanized troops were killed, they launched a jade crushing charge with a broadsword, attacked the Soviet tanks, and then turned into speed bumps. As the commander, the enemy state is strong, and he is about to finish the calf and needs to support.
Dozens of kilograms of poisonous liquid were sent to the front in an attempt to create a plague for the Soviet army by polluting the water sources around the battlefield. Sure enough, a few days after the venom was discharged, the Soviets did not react at all. I wonder about the little day.
On August 22, the Japanese army learned from the hard way and reinforced the infantry regiment with 25,000 new men, and launched an attack under the cover of bombers. Then, under the fire of 150 bombers, 100 fighters and multiple artillery pieces carried by mechanized armored units of the Soviet army, the wolf ran and the rats scurried.
Japan was forced to sign an armistice between the Soviet Union and Japan, and a large number of Japanese prisoners of war were sent to Siberia to dig potatoes. In the Battle of Nomenkan, Zhukov showed his superior command ability, and finally provided strong evidence for his tank unit combat theory.
Triumphant march to Moscow, on this day, Stalin personally received Zhukov. The first time he met Stalin, Zhukov was nervous and excited. The whole war debriefing work was in a state of extreme excitement.
Stalin recognized Zhukov's talent and thinking, awarded him the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, promoted him to the rank of general, sent him to the largest Kiev military district in the USSR as commander. Here, Zhukov conducted a number of actual combat exercises to deduce his own war ideas, and the object of the exercise was Germany, which had just signed the "Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact". Because the Soviet Union and Germany not long ago divided Poland and became a bordering country.
Zhukov was also deeply influenced by the tactics of tank groups, and he and Hitler were surprisingly consistent in their tactical understanding.
But at that time, the Soviet Union still had to pay the price for their temporary paralysis of consciousness. On June 22, 1941, Hitler tore up the treaty and launched a three-pronged invasion of the Soviet Union with 5.5 million troops. Ninety minutes after the start of the war, Germany submitted its war papers to the Soviet Union.
And at this moment, German tanks had advanced dozens of kilometers into the territory of the USSR. Three weeks later, German troops arrived in Kiev. Zhukov was caught off guard and wanted to retreat.
He said: "Stay in the green mountains, don't be afraid of running out of firewood." ”
I'll go, Kyiv can't be lost! I'm going to burn it now. Stalin did not agree to retreat and let the Southwestern Army hold on to Kyiv, resulting in the encirclement of the German army, the annihilation of 660,000 Soviet troops, and the fall of Kyiv.
Stalin, who recognized his mistake, recalled Zhukov, who had just fought a good battle in Smolensk, and received them cordially.
The next day, Zhukov flew to Leningrad with three fierce generals he had appointed. After Zhukov took over the headquarters, he said that he would fight to the last man and would never give up. Zhukov's arrival stopped the German army's boosting plan in time.
Seeing that Leningrad could not be taken for the time being, Hitler let the mechanized and tank units move south. The move was directed at Moscow. Zhukov reported the news to Moscow.
Stalin was silent for a long time and told Zhukov: "Give Leningrad to Hawkingjia, and you fly back to Moscow." ”
On October 7, Zhukov flew to Moscow, stood in front of the map with Stalin in the Kremlin, looked at the current movement of the German army, and came to the conclusion that Hitler wanted to capture Moscow before winter. The German god of war Guderian, with his tank group, gathered a total of 78 divisions with a total of 1.8 million people, and fought fiercely with the 1.25 million defending troops of the Soviet army on three lines of defense weighing 300 kilometers.
After Zhukov took office, he reorganized the Western Front, concentrated the remnants of the Western Front that had been crushed earlier, forcibly blocked the German offensive, and said: "Moscow can normally hold the October Revolution Day parade." ”
On the morning of November 7, hundreds of thousands of heavily armed Red Army troops went straight to the front line after a brief review of the solemn military parade on Red Square, where they joined forces with the Siberian Army to resist the Germans. In mid-November, the Germans launched a second assault, with a frontal attack from the west and a three-way encirclement of Moscow to the east, south, and north.
It was originally planned that within half a month, Moscow must be taken. As a result, because the supply line was too long, and the soldiers were not resistant to frost, they were buffed by the cold winter and the counterattack of the Soviet army.
The momentum of the Russian army has decreased sharply, on the other hand, the longer the Soviet army has been buffed, the more fierce they are. After the battle entered December, Hitler ordered the entire Soviet-German theater to go on the defensive. The last out of control retreated westward.
On December 13, the Soviet Union announced that the Red Army had crushed the German attempt to encircle Moscow. Zhukov made newspaper headlines as the top military brand. In January 1942, the Soviet army began to fight in the territory and continued to fight until June 20. All the way to the west, it liberated Moscow, Kalinin, all of Tula and part of Orel, annihilated more than 500,000 German troops, and won a great victory in the Battle of Moscow. Hitler was forced to abandon the all-out offensive plan and focus on a single point breakthrough.
On 17 July, the German Admiral Paulus led his Sixth Army to attack Stalingrad. Zhukov once again rushed to the aid and fought the Germans in street battles with the soldiers and civilians in the city, and drew up a plan for the battle of Uranus, which was taken from the city to the Baolus. All 330,000 Russian troops were annihilated. Paulus, who had been promoted to field marshal by Hitler's line of fire, surrendered decisively. The Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted about 200 days, led to a great victory for the Soviet army, and Zhukov was promoted to marshal.
In July 1943, in the process of the Soviet army's counterattack, the two sides threw their hole cards in the Kursk region. A total of 8,000 tanks, 5,000 aircraft, and a total of 1.5 million troops were invested, and the largest armored hand-to-hand combat of World War II broke out. In this battle, the German army lost 500,000 troops, 1,500 tanks, 3,000 artillery pieces and 3,500 aircraft. Zhukov was also again awarded the Order of Suvorov of the 1st degree for his excellent conducting.
On May 30, 1944, Stalin approved the plan for the Belarusian campaign, codenamed Bagration, with a total of 2.4 million men led by Zhukov and Vasilevsky, to launch the Belarusian campaign at the time of the Allied landing operation in Normandy. In the face of the German 1.2 million defending troops, the Soviet blitzkrieg was equally unstoppable. After a two-month westward advance, Belarus and Lithuania were liberated, all the way into Poland, and Warsaw was liberated. Speaking of which, Poland is quite embarrassing, two great powers that do not border at all are caught in the middle of the hammer, no matter who wins and who loses on both sides, Poland will no longer be Poland.
In April 1945, when the war began to push towards Germany itself, the Soviet Union's plan was only one word, a blitzkrieg on Berlin, so that Hitler could also experience the feelings of Poland and France. As a result, Hitler mobilized a large number of forces to build three defensive positions in Berlin in an effort to ensure that Berlin was not lost.
At three o'clock in the morning on April 16, Zhukov ordered the Soviet attack on Berlin to begin. 18,000 artillery pieces fired 50,000 tons of shells at German positions in 20 minutes.
With the bombers taking the lead, thousands of colored flares appeared in the sky, hundreds of searchlights on the ground were turned on at the same time, and the battlefield illuminated by more than 1,000 degrees of electric light was like daytime, leaving the German tanks and infantry exposed in the dark.
The scene was so shocking that three days later, Berlin's three defenses were completely breached.
On 20 April, artillery began an intensive bombardment of the city of Berlin. Sukov and Konev rendezvous west of Berlin, encircled and suppressed 200,000 German troops, and captured the Reichstag on the 27th. The 2,000 German SS soldiers in the building fought to the death and caused a lot of trouble for the Soviet army. The idea of direct bombing of the building was proposed, but Zhukov, considering the historical significance of this landmark building, still chose a conventional attack, which ensured the integrity of the building to a certain extent.
At 9:50 p.m. on April 30, fighters Kantalia and Egorov raised the Soviet flag on the Reichstag and were trampled under the feet of the Nazi flag.
The Battle of Berlin was declared over. On May 8, 1945, representatives of Nazi Germany signed the unconditional surrender in the conference hall of a military school in the town of Alzhorst, east of Berlin. Zhukov accepted the surrender of the Germans on behalf of the Soviet troops.
The Third German Reich came to an end. Zhukov, who was honored in the Great Patriotic War and the Battle of Berlin, was awarded the third Golden Star medal and the third Hero of the Soviet Union. He came to the pinnacle of his career.
In April 1946, Zhukov returned home. At this time his popularity was second only to Stalin. Then he was suspicious and guarded against by the bosses of Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev.
They were all jealous of Zhukov's fame and feared that he would have bad intentions for a certain period of time. Especially Khrushchev, his ability to come to power is inseparable from Zhukov's strong support. As a result, as soon as he gained a foothold, he turned around and removed Zhukov.
After Brezhnev came to power, he also rehabilitated Zhukov. Zhukov wrote a memoir during his dismissal, but no publishing house dared to print it. Brezhnev made a suggestion to agree to publish the book as long as it had his name in it.
Zhukov was a little embarrassed, who were you during World War II? Where are you? What do you do?
He didn't know anything. Therefore, the publishing house searched through the whole book, but could not find Brezhnev's name, even if it put together these five words in the form of annotations, it could not be done.
So Zhukov made up a story about "Xunzong": said that one day when we went to inspect the 18th Army, we saw Ley Brezhnev, the director of the Political Department, leading soldiers to fight fiercely with the enemy. Xun Zong was extremely satisfied, and immediately ordered printing and publication.
As for why Brezhnev was called "Honor", it was because he was very envious of the 42 medals of various types on Zhukov's chest, and then he gave himself 104 pieces, which were not changed and hung every day.
At the end of 1973, his wife Galina, who was 30 years younger than Zhukov, died of breast cancer. Zhukov, who was terminally ill, couldn't bear it anymore and followed.
He was 77 years old and buried under the walls of the Moscow Kremlin.
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